Monthly Archives: December 2017

I feel lit up. I feel grounded and strong. My feet like tree roots connected deeply to my past, to time behind, to experiences lived. My body is becoming strong again as I lift the smaller weights and rebuild my left arm that I fractured from not paying attention in October.

And at the same time the ego is running around like a Roomba… telling me the 50,000 things I could/should/must do. As soon as I feel a jolt of possibility striking me, the old patterns are activated.

intention lost in circling

I can paint the base boards in the bedrooms of my B&B. I can write a new book of poetry. I can walk the wet, mythic lands of my ancestors in the North of England. I can send in my manuscript; bleach my teeth; clean out my car; empty my shed; sell my art; get my files straightened on dropbox and my computer.

I have a surge of energy and then the entire cattle drive goes on the run. Each intention runs off of a cliff or into a ravine.

I am far enough along in my ability to step back and watch myself to not be annoyed or angry. It is hugely amusing. I can sit and see the source of comedy in this default setting. Man… my mind is funny.

I start out as an adult and then end up running around the coffee table like my 2 year old grand daughter. Circle faster, circle again.

So as the New Year begins I can feel the brightness of having a starting line. The larger self wants to make sure it is a straight line and not some caucus race to get dry run in the surf by the ocean. Alice in Wonderland had much to teach us about the nature of reality.

I breathe out… stay in the now of it and just feel the gratitude of being able to sit in the joy of new beginnings.

Christmas is a challenge. Yep. Can’t get past that one yet. It is like wearing new bifocals for me this year. I see two fields of reality at once. I move back and forth by simply tilting my perspective.

Seeing oneself

Christmas is dark. I am alone. I will never be loved. The world is frighteningly aggressive. That is the old lense. That is the familiar vision. That is the ego narrative yammering at me.

And then I pressure myself for perfection. Why aren’t you more _______________? Fill in the blank. So in the way of my mind habits I criticize myself for criticizing myself.

We are the love we seek

I spent two days last week undressed, wrapped in my red bathrobe with pink polka dots watching Netflix. Oh, I had a companion. And it was a gluten free cheese cake. Over a two day period I cut off slices of the cake until it was gone. Only then did I force myself to get up and get dressed.

So through the one lense I see how far away from the person I want to be I am at this time. The old wounded stories are still there… playing in the background. My vanity parody self comes out and wants to strut around on some runway of validation to the applause of thousands. There are all of these tethers of mind habits that tug on me.

Working with my childhood

Tilting my head, I see that I have attended to sundry physical problems and gone after support and coaching even when I am at my darkness cave pit of depression. I will seed a positive outcome for the future. I have signed up for a punch card at the Y and gone in for a person training program. And then come home to lay in bed in the dark watching netflix.

I have set up physio therapy sessions for my recovering wrist and work on the program daily so that I am fairly constantly in pain as I open up possibilities of movement. I see my new counsellor and am working on the programs we have designed.

Much of the absolute terror of my past has been uncovered and I have sat with it.

trusting my guides

So when I tell myself I am stalled:When I tell myself I am too small for my spirit:When I tell myself that I am feeble and weak: I realize these are all ego past thought habits. And I look to what things I am doing at the present time.

What I know for sure, if I just tilt my head for the distance vision, is that I am dealing with my connection with my body and with my past. It is not small work. It is not the work that a coward undertakes. It is a stage of preparation.

I rest in the knowledge that all growth serves me. Inevitably it will allow me to be a better friend; a better mother; a better spiritual fitness coach. I guess, I learn to trust most effectively by releasing the need for outside validation. I trust because I trust. It is actually quite simple.

Lately, it has been kind of a layered darkness. I am doing physio on my fractured wrist and getting the use of my hand back is an uphill climb. For the first ten days the constant throbbing was interfering with my peace of mind. Then the flu hit. Everybody, apparently, has this flu so there is nothing particularly dreadful about it other than it is generally dreadful.

Christmas itself is always very difficult for me. A long holiday with my parents shut up in the house with us was like a prison. The fact that it was “normal” for adults to have a rainbow bar full of various types of booze did not help the situation. Learning the skill of being a frozen faced actress helped me. The rage was volcanic and just under the surface. Who would be screamed at and then thrown against a wall next? The cheerful Christmas music in the background ran as a counterpoint to the reality we all were experiencing.

My spunky grand daughter decorating the tree

So the pressure I put on myself to “get over it” wrestles with the triggered depression. This year combined with inhibiting hand pain and the trembling in the bathroom flu experience has left me at odds with my ideal self.

Every single Christmas commercial causes an outbreak in tears. God help me if somebody shows a kitten with a tiny hat on its fuzzy head. When I was phoning Green Shield today, I could barely get through reading my number. What I was hearing in my head is “This is all too much. What if they misunderstand me? Why is the number so mixed up and complicated? Why do I have to repeatedly untangle issues with institutions? Why am I such a wimp?”

the desire to glow

So I put the fireplace on the TV set and listen to the Cinnamon Bear radio show that was a bright spot in my childhood Christmases. As my little brother and I lay on the carpet in front of the towering console radio, it was an anticipated shared pleasure. The series ran every night from Thanksgiving until Christmas. My mother sat in a chair doing something… mending or sewing. And I cannot remember one time when my father raged during the program. I found the show on You Tube and sent it to my brother.

Cinnamon Bear

His reply, “Good times.”

And I know full well I have a lot of work to do on my hand to get its use back. The flu will eventually be defeated. And best of all, Christmas will be over.

Maybe then, I can stop forcing myself to live some lie of cheerfulness. It is a difficult time for me and may never get easier. Learning to be at peace with the struggle is what I am hoping for.

Yesterday I went to the Mall to mingle. There are times when I just wish to “participate” in the socially constructed delusion of purpose. I still remain outside. Even in my dreams I stand outside of a scene in which I am reliving a past even.

So I encourage myself to walk as many steps as I can while checking in on my fit bit. I stop and visit with Rose at the Bay behind the jewellery counter. She has warm, soft and sweet energy. When I see her, I check to see if she is busy and then if she is free, I walk to her.
“Hi Rose,” I say with a big genuine smile on my face. “How are you?”

We talk and as we are exchanging words I think, “I just love you.”

In the submarine hallway of the dark winter shopping center, I stop at the kiosk packed full of young clerks in their black sales costumes. They are kind to one another and to customers. Even though there are four or five of them jammed into a small space there is no competitive striving for territory or sales.

I call them the “better in black” crew and always stop to throw out some trivial words and exchange smiles. They are working so hard to make a life for themselves. They take a bus home and are unlikely to own their own residences any time in the future. But they bend over helping confused people figure out their phones, their plans, their sense of not knowing how to proceed. It is a kindness in intention.

There are opportunities to see a father holding his kids’ hands; a young couple stopped in front of a window enjoying some new style programming experience. The tribes of teen girls have somehow lost their coats and parade in the eye catching attire that they believe gives them value. Groups of young males insult one another and walk in unpredictable lurching playful patterns. There are in jokes exchanged and sudden out breaks of laughter.

How to fit in

Crowds have shown up because there is a yearning for village in a place that sprawls out over the landscape. So many towns have a central street to walk upon once a week. Everyone comes to stroll. Everyone comes to see the new baby, or the new shoes or to hear about the child who is living somewhere else pursuing opportunities.

And now, we are apart. We live in enclaves without a central Malacon or Main Street. We spend hours a day looking at the blue/gray light of a screen. But at the mall at Christmas, people are buying presents to ship to those far away. And it brings us together.

We are a reflection.

I have happened upon people I once knew, I once worked with, I once served on a board with, I took a class with when I was in the mall and it provides a certain continuity in my life. It brings back my history and memories of who I once was. It brings the lie to the sense that I am an outsider and not connected.

Every action I have taken in life has in some way connected me to others in either a positive or a negative way. It is good to remember. Watching the village crowd into the mall is a way to remember that we all share an energy.